Which is insane, because the year was 1972, for chrissakes. The muses were head over heels in love with Takashi Matsumoto, and almost every song lyric emerging from under his pen was unalloyed genius.
But I didn't know that, going into the album. I didn't know what to expect at all. Sons of Sun are so profoundly neglected on the Japanese Internet, let alone the English one, that I thought maybe it was just a repository of practice pieces, something like "outtakes" from the Kazemachi Roman era. Or would it be on the experimental side? — maybe Happy End got the serious, perfected stuff, and this album would just be Takashi messing around, testing out this or that muscle, this or that hint of a direction.
Whatever. It was Happy End-era Takashi. Of course I had to try. I started by working out the opener, Snow-Light (Yanagida/Matsumoto). It was clear by the end of the pre-chorus that it was neither an outtake nor an experiment. It was as good as the best writing on Kazemachi Roman.
"Oh, well then," I thought. "Didn't see that coming."
:::
Nighttime in the countryside is awfully boring.
Time passes awfully slowly.
I was thinking of going out for a walk, but...
...the thing is, whenever I do go outside,
before I realize it,
the whole town is covered in snow.
Wind as cold as a knife
comes cutting right through me.
Nighttime in the countryside is awfully lonely.
The pendulum clock ticks and tocks, ticks and tocks.
I smoke a cigarette
as I stare out the window.
The cold wind blows
and howls and howls.
The whole town is covered in snow.
Wind as cold as a knife
comes cutting right through me.
The whole town is covered in snow.
It's floating in the snow-light.
Wind as cold as a knife
comes cutting right through me.
(Back to: List of Translations)
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